// MISSION BRIEFING

Welcome back, Agent. Fourteen more transmissions, and a harder mission than the last one.

Last time you were given the method and the key. A field note named the cipher, and somewhere on the page somebody eventually told you the keyword, or the number, or the shift. That was training.

This time you get the method and never the key. Nobody will tell you the width of the rod, the multiplier, the rotor settings or the keyword. Finding those is the work, and finding those is what codebreaking actually is.

// THE LOGBOOK

This is new, and it matters more than anything else on this page.

Every message you decode ends with a marked word. It will look like this:

That is an invented example. There is no stage called NIGHTJAR and BRACKENFELL is not one of the fourteen words.

Those words are useless on their own, and no stage will ever ask you for one. At the very end, all fourteen together open the last door, and nothing else will.

This is also why nobody can simply hand you the answer. The final door cannot be opened by knowing the last address. It can only be opened by having actually done all fourteen.

// HOW THIS WORKS

• Every decoded message is the address of your next destination, exactly as before.
• Answers are one word, lowercase, no spaces and no punctuation, however the plaintext is written.
• You travel by changing the web address. There is no answer box anywhere on this site.
• A wrong address shows NO SUCH FREQUENCY. That means the decoding is wrong or the address was mistyped, not that the site is broken.
• Every stage has a FIELD NOTE. It is the only hint you get, and it is always enough. It will give you a name, a year or a phrase. That is your search.
• You are expected to search the internet. Looking up how a cipher works is not cheating, it is the job.
• Some stages need something you worked out in an earlier stage. Keep everything.
• Some stages are more than one step. If you decode something and it is still not English, you are not finished, you are halfway.

// WHAT YOU NEED

A browser and something to write on. That is the whole list.

Nothing here needs software you have to install, and nothing needs the browser's developer tools. Those are switched off on the school machines, so no stage is allowed to depend on them. Where a stage needs a tool, the tool is on the page.

One stage asks you to write a few lines of code. There is somewhere on that page to run it.

If you are on your own computer and you do have developer tools, you are welcome to use them and some things will be faster. You will not need them.

// PREREQUISITE

The first Cypher Challenge is assumed. Not because the ciphers repeat, none of them do, but because several stages here finish with a step you already learned there, and one stage will send you back to it for something you will need.

// FIELD OFFICE RECORD

This browser has already logged a transmission:

RESUME MISSION →

// BEGIN

Three signals came in at once, Agent. Good luck.